RTE has made much of its bid for a hefty licence fee increase to £120 from £70. Yet it has refused to release its submission to the Minister for Arts, Ms de Valera.
However, the Margin has seen the said document - and interesting reading it makes.
While outlining in vivid terms why the national broadcaster doesn't have enough money to fully reflect our unique civilisation, the submission bemoans the dog-eat-dog commercial world that RTE now inhabits.
The irony of the question, on page six of the submission, is shrill indeed: "Now when enforced emigration seems at last consigned to Irish history, will we choose to emigrate mentally and culturally to London or Manchester, to New York or Hollywood, or the Australian suburbs, every time we sit down to view in our front rooms?"
This from an institution that made as if almost mortally wounded when it lost Coronation Street to a rival and which can find room for Australian soap operas.
No-one says Irish viewers should be deprived of foreign programmes. But when the "Irish" Who wants to be a Millionaire? and medico melodramas such as ER occupy top place in the schedules, arguing about mental and cultural migration is akin to digging a very deep hole.
